Coming back to yourself.

You’re not becoming - you are remembering.

There have been multiple Instagram trends lately around the idea that your inner child would be so proud of you now. The things that you stress about, would be a miracle to them. Sometimes I consider the internet a melding of the same idea - it ends up becoming an echo chamber. But something about this trend has burst my heart wide open. It’s precious.

How many different versions have you had to arrive at the version that you are today?

The thing about those versions, they don't go away necessarily. They adapt; they change. I have an adjacent idea to propose to you. An idea around growth and conditioning. When you are born, you are unmolded. Unshaped by external forces. When you are a kid, you are at the core who you really are. You can see this in the way that children are so authentic. They just speak without thinking.

Then somewhere along the way you start to shapeshift. You learn what is acceptable or not, you mask, you adapt. You change - for whatever reason. My therapist brain thinks that a big piece of this has to do with safety. Contorting yourself to find the safest possible being both emotionally, physically, psychologically. This idea of not getting exiled or left to dust.

All of this happens. Then you arrive at a certain age. A various age depending on circumstances. Then there is a reverse process. Back to that person you used to be - that tiny human. That authentic, genuine, tapped in soul. And all the conditioning and the masks the worries, they don’t disappear per se, but they do not hold as much weight. You come back to who you are. Who you were meant to be. Who you feel most attuned as. I’m curious if you have noticed this process for yourself? Who were you before you learned who to be?

Prefer to listen instead? Here’s the podcast episode this was based on: The Liminal Therapist Podcast - Episode 1